The Longbow Papers

It now appears all but certain that William Benson Wasz lied to me, and through me and because of me, to many, many others, about the one essential fact of his "O.J. Story" that had to be true for any part of his tale and confession to be worth a dry spit to anyone other than conspiracy aficionados. Namely, that he never had access to the small, spiral notebook found in Paula Barbieri's stolen Toyota 4Runner after his arrest in Newport Beach on the night of January 31, 1994, some four-and-a-half months before the Simpson murders, June 12.

This 'fact' was first revealed by then retired LAPD homicide detective Tom Lange as an endnote in his and his partner Phil Vannater's book, written with Dan E. Moldea, Evidence Dismissed (Pocket Books 1997). It was the only endnote or footnote in the book. That notation, from January 1997 until literally today, has dominated far too much of my personal life, and the entirety of my career as a journalist and author of book-length nonfiction since the moment I read it and made a couple of phone calls to the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office, and the Robbery/Homicide Division of the LAPD. To say that it almost sabotaged my journalism career, cost me a 31-year marriage, and countless friends and colleagues, is an under-statement. (For those of you with little or no knowledge of what this is about, you can read most of the story here.)

All of which is why I have done nothing with this mind-numbing, gizzard-ripping discovery for six months. What first hit my e-mail box in February was too staggering to digest emotionally in anything other than small, bitter bites at a time, much less write about it. How does one report to others that he was that wrong about a story and a man? That wrong about a story and a man that he'd screamed to the world he was absolutely goddamn right about, often quite defiantly, quite rudely, to some pretty big folks in the publishing business? To household names in the TV news and news talk-show business? Folks who would call me repeatedly and say, stop it, Joe, you're gonna hurt yourself and your career? Folks whose names and faces you would all know instantly if I mentioned them? I burned some pretty famous bridges in those days because I absolutely believed Bill.

For god's sake, the then Editor-in-chief of Time Magazine, and shortly thereafter the boss of a whole lot more (and the best-selling author of justly acclaimed biographies and histories from the early days of the Republic) still tells people that I cried on the phone the Friday afternoon he called to tell me the story would not run--15 minutes before it was going to press as the cover story! I don't quite remember it that way, but he is probably telling the truth--I put my life and almost every penny earned in those days into working the story as deeply as possible because so many important people were telling me to drop it posthaste. Which is exactly what you don't tell an investigative journalist who believes he's on to something.

I don't understand yet how I am going to report it. I only know that it is time I have the emotional courage to begin the process. I have learned in these 6 months that one must admit or confess such monumental wrongness to someone in spoken words before one can begin to deal with it as prose. There is only one person in my life in China close enough to be that someone. That person knew nothing about nor cared one iota for what happened in Brentwood USA in the early summer of 1994; but she listened wonderfully because she cared about me; may the gods love and bless her for it. She still doesn't understand what the fuss is all about in the scheme of a life lived, not remembered. She is a very smart lady.

Far too many of us aren't that smart. Far too many of us still think what truly happened that night on a street named Bundy 13 years ago in one of the most western parts of the North American continent, a long way from Beijing, China, is of great importance; of course, I am one of them. But, frankly, between you, me and that goofy looking dude over there waiting for a bus, I wish I had never heard of the case. The impossible wish. Writing about murder is what I did. Particularly, any murder case that involved Dr. Henry Lee. You know the rest.

Just the facts: In the early days of this year, I received an unsolicited e-mail from someone I had first interviewed a little more than 10 years earlier. While the initial e-mail was anonymous, the question and information it contained identified the sender instantly. The anonymity quickly went away and a number of e-mails were exchanged; enough so that soon I came to understand that much of the underpinnings of the latter years of my journalism career were planted in shifting sand.

This individual asked that anonymity remain when I reported on our exchange. In spirit, I will honor that; but both he and I know that the moment I report any part of this story anyone with any knowledge of Bill Wasz's connection to the Simpson murders will know his name, or at least how easily he can be identified in press filings from that time.

This person was the lawyer that Bill called from a phone in Orange County lock-up shortly after the Simpson murders captured the headlines; he had gotten the name and number from a fellow inmate. Bill's request was fairly straight-forward: You have experience in media cases and I have a story to sell; I also need a lawyer to get my personal effects booked with my arrest released. This attorney was successful in all regards to Bill's request: the story was all over the tabloids and Bill's "journal" quickly became the story of the moment for the Simpson press corps. It then entered the hands of LAPD detectives of the Robbery/Homicide Division. What happened next is public record; the story vanished and all of us at "O.J. Central" moved onto the next loco story du jour.

In the winter of 1997, when the story was back at least for me, this attorney answered the single most important question I would ever ask him the first time we spoke: Did Bill Wasz ever have possession of the "notebook" after his arrest in January, long before the Bundy murders? In my notes, it is unequivocal: No, he did not. In 2007, this lawyer tells me his memory is that I asked him the wrong question. He says I asked him if Bill ever had possession of the notebook alone after his arrest on January 31?

The shocking difference is that this lawyer now tells me that he sat with Bill in a lawyer-client visiting area in Orange County lock-up and watched him create what we have long called Nicole's "schedule" on a couple of days in early December 1993, which he had found in the car when he stole it. The "recreation" came after Bill "became frantic" when he realized that pages of a notebook he remembered being in the car were not among his effects. He says that Bill then began recreating in another notebook in his effects what he remembered reading in the "other" notebook. He says he even helped Bill with dates and times. He says it was all okay because Bill was only recreating what he had found after he had quite blindly stolen Paula Barbieri's car.

The lawyer says it wasn't fraud because that is an oxymoronic issue when selling a story to tabloid television. You don't answer questions that are not asked by folks who don't care about truth anyway. When pushed hard on the fact that Bill had always told me that this lawyer had cheated him, that the tabloid show had paid more than what he reported to Bill and therefore his "cut" was many thousands less than he thought it should be, in paraphrase, he basically said: Come on, you know Bill and money as well as anyone. Didn't he ever accuse you of making money off of him and not sharing?

There were many questions asked and answered over some weeks that pretty much sealed the deal on the absolute identity of the lawyer and e-mailer--but that was one of the first.

Did Bill Wasz lie to me and the world about "Nicole's schedule" in his handwriting in the small notebook still in the possession of the LAPD? I now believe he did. That changes everything. It also proves to the world what so many have already said so often: What a fool Bosco is, huh?

In closing, however, we must ask the most important question if this story is in fact the truth: If Bill was telling this 'evangelical Christian lawyer' the "truth," then who wrote Nicole's schedule in a notebook allegedly in Paula Barbieri's car when Bill stole it? Honestly, I don't think I give a damn any longer, but I know it is the first logical question to ask if one does give a damn.

Much more later. This is the beginning. And then soon, for me, I dearly hope, a quiet ending.

 

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6 Comments:

are you going to tell us what was in the notes?

By raven, at 12:45 PM  

Dear Raven,

I don't understand your question. The "notes" from that first interview with the lawyer some 10 years ago and the item in them that was significant to the particular issue at hand I reported in the post:

"In the winter of 1997, when the story was back at least for me, this attorney answered the single most important question I would ever ask him the first time we spoke: Did Bill Wasz ever have possession of the 'notebook' after his arrest in January, long before the Bundy murders? In my notes, it is unequivocal: No, he did not. In 2007, this lawyer tells me his memory is that I asked him the wrong question. He says I asked him if Bill ever had possession of the notebook alone after his arrest on January 31?"

All the best,

Joseph

By Editor, at 1:27 PM  

Im sorry I misunderstood what you said. So if Bill didnt write that schdule, do you think Oj did? He also had access to her car.

By raven, at 9:24 PM  

Dear Raven,

I don't even want to venture a public guess, primarily for two reasons:

1) I am back to less than the drawing board on the theft of Paula's car and anything in it before or after it was stolen. Since Bill so successfully lied to me about the only fact that would make his 'involvement' with the Simpson case any more relevant than one of the mobs of looky-loos outside of the criminal courts building during the criminal trial, I have no facility, or standing to interpret or evaluate the 'oracle bone' readings that will ensue now that I've reported what I painfully learned about the veracity of Bill Wasz's "O.J. Story." (The funny things is, I still think of him fondly, and with a great sense of loss at his death; we became friends over many years, that does not go away. Hell, I've had wives and lovers lie to me; and me to them.)

2) Because the most you can do now is round up all of the usual suspects--and that is just about all of west Los Angeles in June 1994!--and ask some very hypothetical questions with no foundation against which to assess the answers.

All the best,

Joseph

By Editor, at 10:31 PM  

Wow. I don't think you necessarily need apolgize for vigorously pursuing a story you thought at the time was accurate, yet apparently has turned out wrong.

By chinalawblog, at 2:17 PM  

Chinalawblog,

Sorry to be so late in responding to your comment, but I've just returned from a visit to England. Thank you so much for dropping in and leaving a kind, supportive comment. I am increasingly coming around to feel about the matter as you suggest, professionally.

Emotionally is another matter; that reckoning will take a bit more time. The price I paid was high. But I will deal with that too, and bounce back yet again; one doesn't stay in my business very long without the ability to recover from most anything.

All the very best,

Joseph

By Editor, at 3:46 PM  

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